


Nobody Tried to Be John Wayne

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-10
Updated: 2009-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-27 12:39:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Driving through the dark with his entire world in the back seat, John knows there is no room for this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nobody Tried to Be John Wayne

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: Written for [](http://ultraviolet9a.livejournal.com/profile)[**ultraviolet9a**](http://ultraviolet9a.livejournal.com/) 's birthday. Thank you to [](http://minim-calibre.livejournal.com/profile)[**minim_calibre**](http://minim-calibre.livejournal.com/) for the polishing. Title from Johnny Cash.

The stars are sharp overhead, and the steady, restrained voice on the radio informs him that the temperature outside is eighteen degrees. John keeps the volume down low, and reaches out to turn the Impala's heater up to high. The air flows over him, like she's breathing, into the back where his boys are asleep. Sam's toddler fussing subsided an hour ago into a blotchy red face, hiccups, and finally quiet. Dean's out too.

He glances in the rear view mirror. A square of white light cast from a gas station's overhead lights blinks over the boys. It captures them like a snapshot for a moment before the dark falls again. Dean's curled up at the edge of the bench, his back between Sammy and everything imaginable. They look like two commas, side by side, that's what Mary would say about them. No, an uneven set of quotation marks, Sammy's compact, sturdy toddler body and Dean's leaner, six-year-old one.

Dean's back looks too skinny--he can see the shape of his boy's spine through his t-shirt--and indomitable. As determined as Dean seems, even in sleep, John's the true outer layer. If they're the open quote, he's the closing, the last thing standing between his boys and whatever is out there in the dark.

A cold winter's night is the least of his troubles.

The car's headlights pick out trees, the railing of a bridge, the collapsed remains of a barn near the side of the road, and always the double yellow line.

John lets out a breath, unclenches the steering wheel a fraction, while the radio announcer's mutter blends with the hum of the car engine. The miles roll away beneath them. His baby's never let him down; they're making good time.

Everything, the entire world, is in that space half-lit by the dashboard's glow.

He changes the radio to a classic rock station, still keeping it low so as not to wake the boys.

"Blue Suede Shoes" is playing when the feeling hits, settles around and full into him. He'd felt it only in glimmers the past two years. It overwhelms him. John almost pulls the car over.

It's wrong, treacherous, a betrayal.

For the first time since Mary's death, he'd felt...warm, safe, sure of his direction.

There are still things out there in the dark, his entire world is asleep in the back seat, and there is no room, anywhere, for him to feel contentment.

  
~end


End file.
